| 释义 |
diluvial, a.|dɪˈl(j)uːvɪəl|
[ad. L. dīluviāl-is of a deluge or flood, f. dīluvi-um a washing away of the earth, flood (f. dīluĕre to wash in pieces, dissolve): see -al1.]
1. Of or belonging to a deluge or flood, esp. to the Flood as recorded in Genesis.
1656Blount Glossogr., Diluvial, of or belonging to the Deluge or great Flood. 1831Fraser's Mag. IV. 161 The ‘Asiatic style of oratory’ with all its tawdry tinsel..its diluvial verbiage. 1865Tylor Early Hist. Man xi. 322 The formation of diluvial traditions. 1866J. B. Rose Virgil 167 We have the diluvial theory of the Arkites in respect to many of these mounds, that they are mimic Mount Ararats.
2. Geol.
a. Applied to the theory which explained certain geological phenomena by reference to a general deluge, or to periods of catastrophic action of water.
1816Keatinge Trav. I. 85 The diluvial wash has worn it into deep valleys. 1823W. Buckland Reliq. Diluv. 2, I have felt myself fully justified in applying the epithet diluvial to the results of this great convulsion. 1830Lyell Princ. Geol. I. 31 This doctrine..conceded both that fossil bodies were organic, and that the diluvial theory could not account for them. 1839Murchison Silur. Syst. i. xxxix. 536 The earliest theory, usually called the ‘diluvial’, supposed that these blocks had been forced into their present positions by one or more tremendous inundations, passing over a subsoil which had been dry land. 1859Darwin Orig. Spec. iv. (1873) 76 Modern geology has almost banished such views as the excavation of a great valley by a single diluvial wave. 1893Howorth Glacial Nightmare I. 83 Dr. Buckland, the originator of the term diluvium, and the most famous champion of diluvial causes.
b. Of or pertaining to the diluvium or drift-formation of early geologists; now generally called the Glacial Drift. diluvial clay, the boulder clay.
(For the connexion of a and b see diluvium.)
1823W. Buckland Reliq. Diluv. 38 The diluvial gravel both of England and Germany. 1842H. Miller O. R. Sandst. vii. (ed. 2) 142 A deep wooded ravine cut through a thick bed of red diluvial clay. 1851D. Wilson Preh. Ann. (1863) I. i. 27 The closing epoch of Geology, which embraces the diluvial formations. 1853Phillips Rivers Yorksh. 289 Clay, gravel, and sand, with large boulders scattered here and there, which were till lately termed diluvial deposits. |